Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Rating: 70 %
All for the past couple of months, one of my best friends Meg has been showing me a lot of movies that she really feels I "have" to see. So as part of working my way to 500 reviews, I'm going to talk about some of those films that I mostly want to talk about. So let's start that with Badknobs and Broomsticks.

Plot: During the London Blitz in 1940, these three siblings named Charlie, Carrie and Paul are sent to the care of Eglantine Price much to her displeasure of taking them to her home. But when the children discover that Eglantine is an apprentice witch who is practicing to take part in the war effort, they convince her to tag them along as she being to find the headteacher of her school to begin perfecting her spells.

Okay now while this movie is quite frankly one that I’m sure I would not have enjoyed when I was a kid, watching it grown up, I would say that I was fairly entertained. It was funny, it had some charm, the story was nice, some characters were memorable (but maybe not completely memorable as far as Disney goes), while most songs weren’t too different from each other in some ways, a couple did stand out like “Portobello Road” and “Substitutiary Locomotion”, and it gave us a unique look at things like witches and magic. But it ultimately worked best when it was funny. With scenes like when the main characters went to that cartoon island and the battle in the climax of the film, they really gave us some humorous moment that left me chuckling quite a bit. It wasn't downright hilarious, but it was really enjoyable family humor.

And that's my review for Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Is this a super underrated Disney film? Eh... maybe. I can't really say for sure. But while I wouldn’t say that it’s one of the greatest Disney has given us, it was light, whimsical, funny, and gave us at least some animation to boot, which doesn’t make it great but least was still entertaining to say the least. If you haven't seen it, I'd say it's worth at least giving  it a try for its good songs, fun animation and pretty enjoyable family comedy.

All The King's Men (1949)

Rating: 90%
Okay before I begin, I just want to say you won't believe how weirdly hard it was to finally be able to watch this movie. For a while when I trying to find the movie on the internet or the library, I would just about always get the 2006 version as a response...which as an 11% on rotten tomatoes or something...yeah...that's just not right. But anyway, here we are with the second to last best picture winner to review and the last one to review from the 40's. Here is finally my review for All the King's Men.

Plot: The story begins with reporter Jack Burden who is assigned to write a story about Willie Stark: a man who taught himself law and become a lawyer while also attempting to go into politics. His efforts go horribly wrong at first due to how he's more honest and innocent compared to the corrupted politicians he's fighting against, but eventually he figures things out and eventually goes as far as becoming the governor of the state is loved by everybody. But things start to go wrong when people around begin to feel that he's becoming corrupted by the power he is given.

Okay now I understand why some people seem to think it doesn't hold out as much as it did in '49. Because let's be honest, the story about people being corrupted by power is becoming a more common and therefore becoming a bit more of a cliche then it was back then. But that doesn't necessarily stop it from being a good movie for what it was. The story was told very well, the acting was very well done, heck it was interesting to know that this movie was basically based off a real Louisiana governor from the mid 30's where apparently everything that happens in this movie pretty much happened back then. On a whole, it's a movie that goes into what happens when power really corrupts and it gives a very good idea at what it can really do to people. Plus this film also focuses on what happens to the people around Willie Stark when he become corrupted and reckless in some ways which is good. But I think what interests be the most from watching this movie again is not just how Broderick Crawford's performance gave us a man who completely lost his innocence throughout the film (although it is the main factor as to why he deserved to win Best Actor for it), but also how it was hinted that he was going to be corrupt. Maybe I"m just taking his performance a completely different way then how I should, but watching roughly the first half of the movie again, I realized that even when he was down on his luck, there seemed to be hints that he's not quite as good as you'd expect. That these moments showed how maybe he wasn't 100% on the focus of the people and possibly focused on things just to get the power and be loved and that made it easier for him to be corrupted. Again, I might've read too much into that, but if that's the case, then that's a little interesting that the character Willie Stark and what happens to him may not be quite as black and white as I remembered. Anything else to say, I didn't quite care much for Jack and Anne during the second half because of how they would still be loyal to Stark despite what happens that makes everyone unsure/hate him.

And that's my review for All The King's Men. If you don't like it because of some of the characters or how the moral is more of a cliche then it was before, that's understandable. But otherwise, it's a very well done movie with a good story, well done acting, a main character that was not only well acted, but maybe was not quite as black and white and you might think making him a little more intriguing. It's a very enjoyable film and considering its time at the very least, it's little wonder that it won best picture.

So that's every single best picture winner I have reviewed...except for one. What in the world could that possibly be? Well you are going to find out soon as you might have noticed that I'm not very far away from reaching 500 reviews. So stick around for more as I work my way all the way to my 499th review and I shall finish going through the final one to review as my 500th review. See you then!   

Skyfall (2012)

Rating: 95%
Alright everyone, now it's time for the film that I've been going through 22 films to prepare myself for, the one that practically everyone really loves. Here at last is my review for Skyfall!

Plot: After Bond is believed to be dead when M tells one of the agent to take the shot what would injure both Bond and the person they were trying to catch, MI6 is being hacked and bombed by Raoul Silva. So when Bond eventually return to London turning out to be alive, M retrains him at another MI6 location and sends him to find Silva and try to capture him before he uses his knowledge about MI6 to reveal the identities of other agents that are out in the fiend thereby blowing their covers and getting captured or killed.

Yeah, I can pretty much see why people love this movie so much. In fact Jeremy Jahns described it in his review for the movie as basically The Dark Knight for James Bond. And I have to agree with him with not just Skyfall, but also Casino Royale and kind of sort of Quantum of Solace. Just from hearing his opinion about this movie I started to really realize part of what makes Craig's first and third movies so good. Just like with The Dark Knight trilogy, Casino Royale and Skyfall are darker takes of Bond that have gadgets that are not seen all that much and are also a little more realistic then what the previous films brought.  It's also very story and character heavy in terms of development. The last two film seem to really build up to this film as far as the relationship between Bond and M. With this film their relationship is clear and more personal then it has ever been before. We also get a new Q with whom we also see get a little close with Bond. The only issue I had with the guy was that he didn't introduce the gadgets he gave Bond by saying "Now pay attention 007." like all the other Qs. But I digress. While darker this movie did slip in a very small amount of comedy into this movie. Now I know it seems like I'm completely done with comedy when it comes to James Bond after I said that I really wanted Bond to be more serious in my The Living Daylights review because of all the attempted comedy from most of Roger Moore's films, but this comedy works. It's not used a lot, it's not trying to get the main attention to the audience, it's just small jokes here and there to make us have a good chuckle here and there as the film goes on. We also surprisingly got into Bond's past which was cool...but kind of half done. I mean it was nice to see where he lived (even though it's a little questionable) and even learn itty bitty things about his parents, but I honestly feel that for the most part it was just thrown in and not really have any purpose aside from being the location for a good portion of the second half. Other then that, the villain was pretty good, the action of coarse was great, and the ending just left a lot of things open leaving you excited for the next film to find out what they do next. Finally the title sequence and the song was awesome. I didn't think too much about the song when I first heard it while watching the Academy Awards earlier this year, but when I heard it again during this title sequence with surround sound on Blue-Ray with a plasma screen TV in Blaine's room, I was left really seeing why it won an Oscar for that song.

And that's my review for Skyfall. despite whatever minor issues I had, it had an excellent story, spectacular characters, an awesome song and title sequence, and leaves you excited to see what they do next at the end of the film. It's one of the best Bond films, I recommend it like so many people did to me long before I did this marathon, it's a very good movie. 

Whew. So there you go. All 23 movies of 007 a.k.a. James Bond seen and reviewed. And in conclusion, it's a very enjoyable franchise...but not what I expected in both good and bad ways. I mean I expected way more gadgets then I got throughout the franchise as I stated in my Die Another Day review, heck it was really surprising to find that there was some that didn't really have any gadgets at all. But at the same time, it can at times have interesting villains and Bond girls such as Goldfinger and Tracy (still wished they went a lot more into her character by the way.) It can be light and silly resulting in mostly being stupid, it can be dark and serious which can be awesome to me and other people but upsetting for everyone else, but it is probably best when it's in between ish and is very creative with its stories and villains. In fact, one of the biggest issues I have with this franchise is how a lot of the villains turn out to really be just robbers and smugglers. I mean I get that not every single film has to be about stopping people who are trying to destroy the world or cause World War III, but...seriously? Drug lords and diamond smugglers? That's kind of pathetic to me quite frankly. In fact, I think that's part of what makes Goldfinger the most memorable villain in the series in a manner that's...possibly too easy. While I didn't find him completely menacing or anything, he still was ruthless and in control and his evil plan was very unique compared to what you would more or less expect from a villain in general. Which is where it makes sense to me why AFI would rank him among the top 50 villains in film history. It just honestly seemed like they kind of gave up in giving us truly interesting and creative villains after that under the exception of  Ernst Starvo and maybe Emilio Largo. But I feel there is hope yet after seeing the villain in Skyfall so we'll just have to see what villain they will come up with in the future. Top Bond girls would have to be Tracy, Vesper, and kind of sort of Moneypenny. My personal top 5 Bond films in order of when they came out would be From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, License to Kill, Casino Royale and Skyfall. As for Bond himself, I will rank the actors from best to worst: 1) Connery 2) Craig 3) Brosnan 4) Dalton 5) Lazenby and 6) Moore. But please let the record be clear that the only one that I actually dislike is Moore. Again, he's not a bad actor, he was just a guy who was really just a Bond impersonator and under two exceptions made decent to bad movies and overstayed his welcome because all of his films made an awful lot of money...or at least in my point of view. So the Bond franchise is an enjoyable franchise, but it definitely has its bad moments throughout the past 50 years. What other great adventures, villains and Bond girls they'll give us next, only time will tell. So thank you for reading as I went through all of these films and I'll see you in my next review.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Rating: 65%
Okay the second Bond film for Daniel Craig, here's my review for Quantum of Solace.

Plot: Basically starting right after the end of Casino Royale, Bond takes Mr. White to be questioned by MI6. But during the questioning, White reveals that he's part of an organization that they are completely unaware of; Quantum. This leads to M's bodyguard turning out to be a double agent as he helps White escape by attacking M. After killing the kills the bodyguard, Bond tracks down his contact leading him to Dominic Greene who is helping an exiled Bolivian General to overthrow his government.

This is viewed to very easily be Craig's weakest Bond film so far and is even viewed by a lot of fans - at least according to Jeremy Jahns, as a Bond movie that doesn't even exist. And while I wouldn't completely go as far as treating it like it doesn't exist, I can really understand way. Now first off, it's not completely bad. Craig for the most part is still starting to give us a new kind of Bond, we begin to see the relationship between him and M more, the action was good and we sort of got a little more of the story behind what we learned about Vesper in the end of the previous film. Unfortunately, the villain and the bond girls were bland for the most part, some of the things that Bond does is kind of stupid, and while I do more or less mean it when I say it's a good thing we got a little more about the story behind Vesper, it was unnecessary at the same time. There isn't a whole lot more to say about the villain or the bond girls, but how Bond acted was kind of stupid. He was more reckless because of how he's in total rage about what happened to Vesper. And how he and M keep talking about how he keeps killing his leads without a care because of it kind of made what was happening between them act more like something you'd expect from some TV show or something where they focus on just one episode just on the hero learning one simple lesson, only that it's done in one entire movie. I can understand how some people like this movie because of it with how that shows how he's still learning as he goes, but sadly that doesn't seem to be how everybody feels about this movie. Finally, when I thought more about this film after watching it, I felt that we didn't completely need a story to follow up Casino Royale. I mean granted the previous film left out what officially happened to the boyfriend Vesper had, but that's barely even mentioned. In fact, the guy isn't really seen until around the very end. Most of this film is just getting rid of everyone else in the organization which I kind of felt they didn't need to do that either. I guess personally for me when Bond captured Mr. White in the end of Casino Royale, I thought that there was no need to give up anything else necessarily. The man behind the whole thing and also has the money is captured, and so we didn't really need to focus an hour and 46 minutes on the next film (which makes it the shortest Bond film to date by the way), on just finishing off the remaining bad guys that they just introduced us to this film. So really when you think about it, Quantum of Solace was really a film that was just about wrapping little things up from what remained after Casino Royale, and not really anything else. All of which is not really needed considering the only thing I think they really needed to go into if anything after the previous film was the boyfriend and he's close to never even mentioned in this movie at all.

And that's my review for Quantum of Solace. It has bland bond girls and an even less interesting villain and the story and the motivation to what Bond does was kind of interesting but not entirely necessary. But it otherwise has good action, develops Bond and M a little more making it an okay movie that you're probably not going to remember as well as a lot of the other Bond films.     

Casino Royale (2006)

Rating: 90%
Okay so roughly right after we saw Cloud Atlas, Blaine and I watched all of Daniel Craig's Bond films so with that done, let's begin to wrap up this James Bond movie marathon with Casino Royale.

Plot: After getting his 00 status back, Bond kills a bomb-maker in Madagascar and takes his phone and tries to track it to find out who he's working for. Eventually, his lead leads him to a terrorist financier named Le Chiffre. So Bond is assigned to bankrupt Chiffre in a high-stakes poker game with the help of the treasury employee assigned to provide the money, Vesper Lynd.

As soon as Blaine and I got to the beginning of the title sequence to this film, I was hooked. This film isn't even meant to precede or succeed any of the other Bond films, it's basically a reboot of the whole franchise. And the result is a film that is very smartly written. The story is very different from the other Bond films and is more realistic and more thought out. In fact it's a very character and story heavy movie - there wasn't a whole lot of action compared to a lot of the other films in my opinion. When I was only planning to get to Craig's films, my brother who has seen this movie and Skyfall said that Craig is viewed to be a very, very different kind of Bond. And he's turning out so far to be absolutely right. Craig's Bond is much more darker and gritty as Bond which is similar to Timothy Dalton as Bond, but he's more reckless, brutal and cold with how he's very focused on the mission, but he's also vulnerable in a couple of ways. Also he and M and kind of starting to be a little more personal around each other which is starting to make her much more interesting. And then you have Vesper who is less of a sex object then probably any of the other Bond girls. In fact she's probably the more human then most of the characters in probably any James Bond film in general. She's very smart and focused on the mission but when it comes down to witnessing Bond fighting the bad guys she can be very vulnerable in a much more believable and realistic way rather then just follow Bond around and look pretty. In fact she's probably one of the very best Bond girls because of how she's much more of an actual person to care for just like Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Also there was at least some gadgets while not really shown majorly like Die Another Day which was really nice, and the title sequence was just awesome. Finally while the ending may have taken longer then some people felt it should've been, it was done very well and is altogether a great example at how Craig's Bond is starting to go a very different route from the Bond movies in a lot of ways.

And that's my review for Casino Royale, while dying down from gadgets and action for the most part, we seem them replaced with a whole new kind of Bond that is smarter, more edgy, very character and story heavy and is altogether very different from the Bond films making this a great Bond film and a great movie in general.  

Cloud Atlas (2012)

Rating: 75%While I hardly knew a thing about this movie, one of my best friends Blaine would talk about it a lot for the past few months really being curious if I have seen it/getting me to see it because it's one of his favorite movies. As of early this afternoon, I finally came to his place and settled the matter once and for all, so here's what I thought of Cloud Atlas.

Plot: The films goes back and fourth between six different stories that occur in several different time periods. Each one telling a story from different reincarnations of various people. As it progresses, it explains how they are connected and how their lives affect their reincarnations.

Now to be honest, I didn't have a whole lot of hopes with this film. I had no idea what happens in it, I just kind of recalled it not having spectacular reviews or something like that. But surprisingly, I ended up genuinely liking the movie. It took until Blaine and I were a little over 1/3rd into the movie, but with a little help from him while paying attention and keeping an open mind as best as I can, the stories and the characters started to grow on me. That is the thing about this movie, you have to pay very close attention to what is happening as it goes on or at least have someone who has seen it and likes it to guide you like Blaine did for me. The main reason why there are people who don't like this movie is because they find it confusing and that there was too many stories to focus on and how it's 2 hours and 45 minutes long. I have to admit that it was starting to really feel that way until I started to see the connections and the stories started to develop more and more. Granted maybe not everything was completely needed, so sometimes they would show something from one story for no real reason while moving on to the other one. But on a grand scale, if you are patient and do pay attention and keep an open mind, eventually the results come out very rewarding as all the stories come together. Also the acting was very well done, it had such a big cast; Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, and so on and so forth. And all the main cast members are playing around 4-6 roles give a take, and they do such a great job acting in these very different roles. Some of them you may not notice due to the makeup and things like that, which is where I encourage you to stay for the credits if you see this movie because it's very interesting and yet messed up when you find out who is who at some points. I'm not a know-it-all or anything when it comes to make up, but what they did with these actors for some of there characters was very impressive, making it mind-blowing when you find out that it's that actor playing that specific character. Other then that, the film as a whole is very emotional, somewhat complex, visually impressive and pretty creative.

And that's my review for Cloud Atlas. If you don't like the movie because of how it's juggling so many stories and is almost 3 hours long, that's okay. But for what is, Cloud Atlas has very enjoyable stories with great visuals, excellent acting, and I for one turned out having a very good time watching it with Blaine. Whether you like it or not is up to you, but if you haven't seen it, I think it's at least worth giving it a try. If you don't like it then fine, but otherwise you just might end up pretty entertained if you do.

Die Another Day (2002)

Rating: 60%
Okay so now we're at the fourth and last of Brosnan's Bond film and the 20th Bond film in general. This is my review for Die Another Day.

Plot: The film begins with Bond going undercover in a North Korean military base where a rouge Colonel named Tan-Sun Moon is illegally trading African conflict diamonds for weaponry. Bond's cover is blown and so they fight each other resulting in Moon's apparent death leading his father, General Moon to imprison Bond. Bond is released 14 months later for a prison exchange but is suspended from his 00 status due to M believing that he leaked information during his imprisonment. So Bond escapes from MI6 security and goes off to clear his name and find the real traitor.

This is kind of another Bond film that I think is a decent flick, but I definitely get why some people disliked it. What most people say about it is that this one had way too many CGI and explosions and gadgets and that really hurt the plot. I completely agree with that, but that doesn't mean I doesn't mean I thought it was all that bad. Part of why I say this kind of has to do with how I feel so far about the Bond film in general so far. And that is I'm surprised the amount of gadgets in this film was practically in every single film of James Bond. I guess from seeing the last third of this movie once on TV years ago and from what I got out of all the parodies and knock-offs from the James Bond franchise, I did start this marathon believing that there was going to be an awful lot of gadgets from the very start, because all that other stuff lead me to believe that, that is supposedly a total must have in a Bond film. That's actually a small part of why From Russia With Love is one of my favorite Bond films so far; because we actually got into Q and his gadgets unlike Dr. No. Now I've gotten over how there's a lack of gadgets considering how they make up for it with still having good action and also focusing a little more on the story or stuff like that, which is where Bond films like From Her Majesty's Secret Service are really good. But in the case of Die Another Day, I can honestly say that I liked that they had a lot of gadgets and that most of them were really good to begin with. But everything else that they had too much of, I can agree with. There was a lot of CGI and in some cases a lot of explosions. And when I think more about the plot and the characters, a really big chuck of all that stuff was rather underdone. Like Halle Berry's character, Jinx; how people felt about her acting is a whole other argument since I'm not very familiar about her outside of this film and the X-Men movies, but I did find her character to be really underdeveloped. This was particularly sad because from what little I saw years ago, I was lead to believe there was a really good amount of development and maybe even complexity to her character. But as it turns out as one guy puts it (I don't remember who it was or where online), there seemed to be more development in Miranda Frost then Jinx even though she's the female star. As for the plot, while it did start of strong with Bond getting imprisoned and once again kind of going rouge against MI6 is a rare/different take from a Bond film which is always a good thing, it sadly did start to get a little confusing and leaving me not completely sure what was happening. But despite this, we do get more great action to go with the gadgets and I particularly enjoyed the third act for the most part despite it really not turning out as I remembered. Plus this is when we start to have John Cleese officially be the new Q. I completely forgot to mentioned that he started popping up as R in my The World Is Not Enough review in amidst of  the whole Denise Richards thing. I am sorry about that everyone.

And that's my review for Die Another Day. It does focus too much on explosions and CGI to the point of leaving some characters like Jinx underdeveloped, but it still is enjoyable at least to be with its action and lots of particularly cool gadgets make it a decent film for otherwise just mindless entertainment while thinking of how it could've been a lot better.